Competing with Superstars: Does Exclusive Third-Party Content Discourage Complementary Innovation?

Nele Lueker, Jens Foerderer, Armin Heinzl

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

We study how the introduction of exclusive third-party applications affects competing complementors' innovation strategies in platform ecosystems. In this study, we exploit the exclusive entry of Super Mario Run into the complementary app market of Apple's iOS App Store in Autumn 2016 as a quasi-experiment. We collect monthly time-series data throughout the observation period. We find that complementors show heterogeneous innovation behavior after the entry. First, we demonstrate that affected complementors with a similar market position as the entrant follow a competition strategy for update releases in the affected niche market. Complementors who do not hold a similar market position reduce the number of updates for existing products in the affected niche market following a differentiation strategy. Finally, independent of the complementor's market position, affected complementors follow a differentiation strategy for new app releases, increasing the number of new app releases in other categories.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationInternational Conference on Information Systems, ICIS 2022
Subtitle of host publication"Digitization for the Next Generation"
PublisherAssociation for Information Systems
ISBN (Electronic)9781713893615
StatePublished - 2022
Event43rd International Conference on Information Systems: Digitization for the Next Generation, ICIS 2022 - Copenhagen, Denmark
Duration: 9 Dec 202214 Dec 2022

Publication series

NameInternational Conference on Information Systems, ICIS 2022: "Digitization for the Next Generation"

Conference

Conference43rd International Conference on Information Systems: Digitization for the Next Generation, ICIS 2022
Country/TerritoryDenmark
CityCopenhagen
Period9/12/2214/12/22

Keywords

  • Platform ecosystems
  • complementary innovation
  • exclusive third-party entry
  • platform governance

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